Despite that President Ahmed Bola Tinubu has constitutional right to his privacy, Nigerians are entitled to know some basics about him because he is in charge of their affairs.
This is the view of Nwabueze Ugwu, a constitutional lawyer. Ugwu spoke in Enugu in the aftermath of a suit filed by former vice-president Atiku Abubakar over alleged certificate forgery against Tinubu.
Our correspondent reports that Chicago State University was compelled by a court to provide Tinubu’s academic records to Atiku for the prosecution of his case against Tinubu at Nigeria’s Supreme Court where Atiku is contesting the declaration of Tinubu as winner.
He said, “Every Nigerian has a right to self and family privacy. But the moment you are sent into public office, everything about you becomes public. It is the debt Mr President owes Nigerians, and indeed Africa.”
He regretted that there are many contentious issues about President Tinubu, and advised him to clear the doubts to set his records straight.
In his words, “There appears to be controversies about Tinubu’s name, age, state of origin, and academic records. Nigerians are entitled to know the correct position.”
On the blame on the Independent National Electoral Commission and Nigeria’s intelligence agencies for not properly scrutinizing Tinubu’s academic records, leading to the matter moving to the US, Barr Ugwu who is a former member, Enugu State House of Assembly, said, “I agree that it is not possible for DSS to move out to nose around.
“But I agree that if somebody is going to be president, everything about him should be sniffed into so we can know who is governing us.
“In the West, you don’t play with that. In US, they know whoever will be their president must have attained a certain level of intellect, and won’t mess around with the future of America and the world.”
